Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 11,000 digitized and videotape titles (all originally derived from film) and a large collection of home movies, amateur and industrial films acquired since 2002. Its primary collection emphasis has turned toward home movies and amateur films, with approximately 17,000 items held as of Spring 2019. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven't been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions. Getty Images represents the collection for stock footage sale, and over 6,400 items (representing approximately 4,800 distinct films) are available here.

Click to see a Tag Cloud of the Archive's Prelinger Collection.

Click for more information about the Prelinger Archives.

Information about Prelinger Library, an appropriation-friendly library of printed materials located in San Francisco, is here.

Rick Prelinger and The Internet Archive hereby offer public domain films from Prelinger Archives to all for free downloading and reuse.

You are warmly encouraged to download, use and reproduce these films in whole or in part, in any medium or market throughout the world. You are also warmly encouraged to share, exchange, redistribute, transfer and copy these films, and especially encouraged to do so for free.

Any derivative works that you produce using these films are yours to perform, publish, reproduce, sell, or distribute in any way you wish without any limitations.

This statement of rights describes the rights granted to you so that you can use films from the online Prelinger collection at the Internet Archive.

Your right to use these films is granted by the Creative Commons Public Domain license when it appears on the "detail page" for a film. For details on this license, please click the Creative Commons license logo below.

Neither the Internet Archive nor Rick Prelinger can offer additional information regarding the rights to these films, or provide written license agreements. If you require a written license agreement or further information on the rights status of any Prelinger Collection titles, please see below.

Please be aware that:

-- the Creative Commons Public Domain license is the only license relating to films from the online Prelinger Collection;

-- the Internet Archive "Terms of Use" do not apply to the online Prelinger Collection;

-- the CC Public Domain license refers to the public domain status of the films, but not necessarily to every element that a film may contain;

-- and that other films, videos, texts and audio files hosted at the Internet Archive are not necessarily covered by the same license that governs the online Prelinger Collection. Please research these items individually if you wish to reuse any of them.

Descriptions, synopses, shotlists and other metadata provided by Prelinger Archives to this site are copyrighted jointly by Prelinger Archives and Getty Images. They may be quoted, excerpted or reproduced for educational, scholarly, nonprofit or archival purposes, but may not be reproduced for commercial purposes of any kind without permission.

If you require a written license agreement or need access to stock footage in a physical format (such as videotape or a higher-quality digital file), please visit our Stock Footage page. Neither Rick Prelinger nor the Internet Archive furnish written license agreements, nor do they comment on the rights status of a given film above and beyond this Creative Commons license.

Further information on works from Prelinger Archives can be found here. Questions should be directed to Rick Prelinger at Prelinger Archives, PO Box 590622, San Francisco, CA 94159-0622 USA.